Tuesday 15th July - The Murky Clarity of a West Country Accent

With only two days remaining and still lots of places to visit we headed off early to submerge ourselves into the hustle and bustle of the Grand Central Terminal in all it's enormity. Since 9 - 11 the city has made a mission to show more police presence on the streets and as we rounded the corner to the station the numbers of officers was clearly evident. Interestingly some were chatting away to teenagers with skateboards and I wondered if this was an approach the British force could learn from.

Adamant I could score again with a restaurant from my eat.shop nyc book, we headed to Roomali on Lexington with 27th for an Indian roti sandwich. As we walked up to it I have to admit to wavering on my resolve to trust the book. The sign said closed, although we had just seen someone leaving with a sandwich, and to be honest it looked far from savoury. Thankfully we persevered, the result of which was devourment of the tastiest mango chicken sandwich surrounded by playing children in Madison Square Park.



Fed and watered we headed off to the Arup office where Tim met Fiona and Ray and set off for an afternoon of sailing. I meanwhile headed off to the Staten Island Commuter Ferry to take in the Statue of Liberty. A few minutes after leaving the others by the world financial centre a father and son asked me if they were heading the right way for the ferry and from here I spent the rest of the afternoon with Daniel and Thomas.





I had intended on taking in a little shopping later that day but as we wandered and chatted, it was evident to me I was unlikely to have such chance meetings back at home and that I should enjoy it whilst it lasted. Instead I found myself yet again exploring the city by foot, marvelling at the built environment as we all chatted away about baseball and the Yankies game that evening.




Tim was pretty perplexed by the slenderness of this structure - look how narrow it is in comparison to block next to it:



A few hours on and I met the sailors back where I left them for a meal drenched in linguistic confusion. First of all I asked the busboy for a drink which is frequently met by silence as generally their English is not that great. After three months in the States I should have known not to ask these guys but it isn't always obvious who the waitors are and are not until they have displayed that they have no idea what you are talking about. My west country accent even seemed to throw the waiter as it became evident that Indians in America find the broad Irish accent of Ray easier to understand than mine. I kept laughing, mainly out of embarrassment at not being able to make myself understood and yet I fear they were offended thinking I was laughing at them as opposed to with them. An hour later Becci, who was over for work, met us and I was thankful to realise she went through practically the same chirades in an attempt to get a glass of wine.

Finally fed up of waiting to order another drink or even to be understood, we hopped into taxis for gelato and coffee local to Ray and Fionas, before heading back to the hotel for our final sleep in America.